“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting to get different results.” It is a phrase that is attributed to Albert Einstein but there is no evidence that the scientist coined it. And it is quite clear that Tadej Pogacar is neither crazy nor stupid. On the contrary, he is smart and intuitive. He has that witty spark that distinguishes geniuses. He doesn’t think or act like others. And the 25-year-old wonder boy has not thought of anything other than giving a Copernican twist to his 2024 calendar, which will stop gravitating around the Tour de France, to orbit his season around a historic challenge that questions all the beliefs of modern cycling.
The Slovenian, defeated in the last two months of July in France by Jonas Vingegaard, does not plan to risk everything against yellow again but rather doubles down and will seek the Giro-Tour double that turns the greats into giants.
Engrossed in his duel with the Dane, with this change he has achieved that what should be the tie-breaker Tour – both are tied with two wins – can also place him related to Coppi, Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Indurain. All the cycling aces have won the Italian-French double in the same year. The leader of the UAE was not born when the late Marco Pantani managed to achieve his greatest successes in 1998. El Pirata was the last.
After each defeat in Paris at the hands of Vingegaard, experts predict that the boy with 63 victories will hit the brakes, reduce his wear and tear and put aside his exhibitions in order to carry out specific preparation for the Tour, something that fans fear. They don’t know him. Ambitious and restless, far from staying in a comfort zone, he is always willing to innovate and test.
Can you imagine James Bond ordering a mixed and shaken Martini? Well, that’s what Pogacar has done by turning his calendar upside down.
We will never know what would have happened in 2023 without the fall and broken wrist he suffered in Liège. The surgery and recovery altered his approach to the Tour. But 365 days later he will hardly repeat anything. Only Milan-Sanremo, one of the monuments that he still does not have, and the aforementioned Liege.
The Strade Bianche sterrato replaces the white roads of Jaén, while instead of Paris-Nice it will be the Tirreno-Adriatico. However, the big difference is that it goes from the pavé, the cobblestones and the heights of the Ardennes to focus in spring on the Volta a Catalunya and the Giro d’Italia.
“Of course we would like to have the two Slovenians,” Rubèn Peris, general director of the Volta, sighed in 2022. Well, last year he enjoyed Roglic (he won two stages and the overall) and he managed to attract Pogacar to the finals in the Sanctuary of Santa María de Queralt, Vallter and Port Ainé.
In 2023 he arrived at the start of the Tour in Bilbao with 21 days of competition. In 2024, if the initial forecasts are met and he does not have any setbacks, he will appear at the Grand Départ more loaded with 38 days in his legs. But if on June 29 – 34 days after the Giro ends in Rome – he already has the pink in his pocket, Pogacar will be more dangerous than agent 007.
